DAMA
ARRIVEDERCI, GOODBYE, AU REVOIRE, AUF WIEDERSEHEN !
After six extraordinary years of love for Turin attempting to show the hidden potential of the territory through unprecedented visions, unique places and a program well recognized for its full experimentation, we will suspend for a while the physical program to give back space to ideas, reflecting on our role in a fast changing landscape.
The current scenario is visibly different from the one in 2016 when we felt the need to develop an alternative exhibition’s format. The unexpected acceleration of the present historical moment and the instability given by last two years, have further moved on our goals in terms of being more sustainable, desiring to stimulate again the participants through a new open minded attitude, the will to conquer a new freedom listening to the urgency of the planet, opening a debate to encourage artists, curators and galleries to convey their contribution in a different way compared to the previous reality and, above all, the will to be one of the cause of the future rather than a good result of the past.
We want to thank all the supporters, curators, artists, galleries, magazines, institutions, friends and mainly the sponsors, Fondazione CRT and Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, who deeply believed in the DAMA project since the beginning, hoping to always have them along our way.
While we are forward to see you again, a series of suggestions will occupy our pages and social networks for a while.
ABOUT
DAMA is an independent project taking place within historical venues in the center of Turin to involve a group of international galleries and artists invited by the Artistic direction. From 2016 DAMA presents brand-new languages of art taking inspiration from Le città invisibili, a novel by Italo Calvino published in 1972, to offer a certain intimacy by installing a bespoke exhibition where artworks can be presented in a unique way, to provide to the visitors, the participating galleries and the artists a privileged environment dedicated to meaningful dialogue between contemporary art practices and history.
A parallel program of video and performance took shape every year through the contribution of international curators invited on a rotating basis: Lorenzo Balbi (2016), Joao Laia (2017), Martha Kirszenbaum (2018), Elise Lammer (2019-2020) and Ludovica Parenti (2020) which has invited some of the most active artists in the panorama.
LAST EDITION
The sixth edition presented an update of the exhibition project balanced on the new reality that marked the changes of last years, completing the path started in 2020, aiming to integrate the Live Programme of video and performances with the visual works by artists proposed by their galleries, creating an heterogeneous exhibition that, from the fifth edition, carried out through a meeting of mixed languages ranging from sound, performance, video and sculpture contaminated by a dense program of talks, to accompany the public towards a new exhibition's approach into a wide-ranging vision.
In compliance with this process, the program 2021, titled APERTO, took place entirely into open spaces, courtyards and institutional venues of Turin, to start a deep dialogue with the community and the town itself, setting a link with historical Italian sites and identifying palazzo's courtyards as the right place to evolve the concept of interaction between the past and the contemporary, updating and concentrating the proposal through a widespread itinerary.
DAMA 2021 was focused on the works by Italian artists from different generations, bridging the time elapsed between brand-new and established artists relating, once again, the history of the city with artworks.
The program also comprised conversations in historical bookshops and institutional venues of the city and a night video programme in the multiplayer store Isola that became a meeting point for cultural workers, artists, intellectuals and visitors.